The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia Book

This is another work that reinforces the idea/fact that U.S. policy in the Mid-East and Central Asia is severely flawed and needs to be reexamined. Our relationships with despotic dictators needs to be much more transparent to the people of the U.S. Also since the Caspian oil/gas bubble needs to be transported out of the Caspian area in pipelines that run through many unstable states or Russia. This work shows the difficulties with all these options. None of the newly minted Caspian states are anxious to sell there oil/gas to the west through Russia. These states do not want to hang there economic livelihood on Russia interests in the West. What if Russia decides on embargo and turns the oil/gas taps off in the Gas-prom pipeline? The Caspian states don't want there oil boom to be controlled by Moscow.

Moving on to Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, unstable governments, bandits, Russian interference, ethnic tensions and a host of other problems mean routs through this area are also sketchy. Several lines have been built since The New Great Game was published, but these have also been shut down due to all of the above reasons for some period of time since they were completed. These pipelines end up in Turkey, which under ErdoÄŸan is another iffy state. Heading for another extreme Rt. wing conservative Islamic State? Does the U.S. want our oil coming from another RT wing Radical Islamic State?

Next there's Afghanistan. Do we today want to deal with the Taliban and their repressive regime or another failed state that is filled with individual clans and war bands of narco traffickers.

Next are Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan. All these states are dictatorships and have lousy human rights records, but are being courted by China. China wants to get in on the Great Game and use Caspian oil as a relief from long tanker trips from the Persian Gulf and dependence on Saudi oil. So China's looking to divest from the Saudi Govern meant with it's accompanied religious suppression and other human rights issues which the U.S. has turned a blind eye to since 1991 and Desert Storm.

This brings us to Iran which is the most logical to any one with two functioning brain cells. The only reason Iran is out? The very conservative Revolutionary Guard outed Reagan in the mid 80's. This has lead to the GOP continually undermining ANY Democratic idea that does not involve violent regime change in Iran. With every Democratic move to support a more liberal Iranian Government the GOP kills it. This brings back a more Conservative Revolutionary Guard Government and that plays to the GOP's War Hawk approach to all international problems. With Iran, this is expressed in the work by the former oil minister, "The Iranian people will starve, freeze, loose their children, loose their lives, and families before they allow a return of pre-Shah ideas or Government. And this is exactly the regime change the GOP wants.

All in all this is a must read to better understand what is going on in the Mid-East and Central Asia.